The document discusses the importance of humility for product managers. It argues that humility involves awareness, openness, and perspective taking. Some ways to build humility include presenting humility, preparing for failure, and promoting dissent. Preparing for failure could involve doing "pre-mortems" where teams imagine a project has failed and list reasons for failure to strengthen the project before launch. Promoting dissent means learning from failed products and celebrating learnings rather than losses. The overall message is that humility is the most important virtue for successful product managers.

1. The Most Important PM Virtue by
Disney SVP of Product
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6. Presented at Product Con 2022
May 10, 2022
Ajay Arora
The Most
Important
Virtue

7. Product Vision
Business Chops
Analytical Skills
Superior
Communication

9. Humility?

10. hu·mil·i·ty
/(h)yo
͞ oˈmilədē/
noun
A modest view of
one’s own
importance;
humbleness.

11. Humility
The most important virtue of a successful PM
💚

12. Ajay Arora

16. Born &
Raised in
Toronto,
Canada
Reside &
Work in the
Bay Area

20. I am wrong,
A LOT.

24. Synchronizing the audiobook with the
ebook allows consumers to
simultaneously read & listen, thereby
immersing the reader deeper into the
story.

25. The product
bombed.
Sales Over Time

27. “
Via 2014 Amazon Shareholder Letter
Whispersync for Voice allows customers to switch seamlessly
back and forth between reading a book on their Kindle and
listening to the corresponding Audible book on their
smartphone. If you haven’t already, I recommend you give it a
try.”

28. Netflix tries to
stream from niche
to mass with
mobile-only plan for
India
With China being blocked, India is one market where
Netflix is looking to increase its subscriber count. The
California-based video streaming giant has launched a
Rs 199 mobile-only monthly plan, tailored for Indian
binge watchers.

29. Price
Quantity
p0
p1
p0 p1
Demand curve

30. Drop Price by 50%
Increase Signups by 50%

32. Humility

33. Humility is
multi-dimensional;
It includes
awareness,
openness, and
perspective taking.

34. How NOT
to Behave.

35. “ -Adam Neumann. Founder & CEO of WeWork speaking to analysts during their IPO roadshow
We have never closed a building.”

36. One analyst
jumped in to
say that while
this sounded
like an
achievement,
it didn’t make
any sense.
OF THE MORE
THAN FIVE
HUNDRED
LOCATIONS
THE COMPANY
HAD OPENED
IN THE PAST
DECADE, NOT
A SINGLE ONE
HAD BEEN A
MISTAKE?

37. 1.PRESENT
HUMILITY.
How to Build Humility
2.PREPARE
TO FAIL.
3.PROMOTE
DISSENT.

38. PRESENT HUMILITY

44. PREPARE FOR FAILURE

46. Pre-Mortems:
Research conducted in 1989 by
Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton
School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and
Nancy Pennington, of the University of
Colorado, found that prospective
hindsight—imagining that an event has
already occurred—increases the ability
to correctly identify reasons for future
outcomes by 30%.

47. 1. Brief team that we’re doing a pre-mortem
2. Start by informing the team that the project has failed *spectacularly*
3. Everyone independently writes failure reasons
4. Go around the room stating reasons and pinning them on a board
5. Team reviews the list to find ways to strength the project prior to launch

48. PROMOTE DISSENT

49. What can we learn from
failed products?

53. Celebrate the losses learnings!
Be humble.

54. THANK YOU.
LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarora/

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